The recession may have robbed city governments of the wherewithal to enhance public places. But some undaunted architects, planners, and community activists are trying urban design experiments that are deliberately cheap, temporary, and unofficial. And sometimes these modest but audacious interventions lead to altered municipal policies and lasting changes in the cityscape. Take an effort called the Better Block, which launched with an unofficial event in Dallas in April 2010. For one weekend, community activists anted up just under $1,000 and used mostly borrowed materials and their own ... Read More
Turning Failed Commercial Properties Into Parks
December 28, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
In the language of urbanism, "greenfields" usually means rural land at the metropolitan edge, where suburbia metastasizes. "Brownfields" are former industrial sites that could be redeveloped once they are cleaned of pollution. "Greyfields" — picture vast empty parking lots — refer to moribund shopping centers. Recently another such locution was coined: "redfields," as in red ink, for underperforming, underwater and foreclosed commercial real estate. Redfields describe a financial condition, not a development type. So brownfields and greyfields are often redfields, as are other ... Read More
John Gwynne: Bronx Zoo Designer, Conservationist
February 23, 2010 • By • 2 Comments
When he was 9, John Gwynne visited the Bronx Zoo, where for the first time he saw a gorilla, in a claustrophobic cage, in the manner of zoos in the 1950s. The mournful-looking creature impressed him; the confinement saddened him. But Gwynne was also fascinated by a huge cockroach wandering across the floor of the cage. He'd never seen anything like it. Before his 15th birthday, Gwynne told his parents that a good present would be having a pond dug on the family's land on a rural peninsula in southern Rhode Island. "I wanted to create an environment," he says. So his parents hired someone to ... Read More
Honorable Ambassador From Nature-Land
January 9, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
It's not easy being a park ranger these days. Park visitation has declined, and those who do visit parks are apt to be less comfortable in nature and possess fewer outdoors skills than visitors of 10 or 20 years ago. Today's rangers must cope with an increasing number of kids who would rather be on MySpace than in green space and with adults who demand cell phone coverage in the wilderness but no longer answer the call of the wild. Emilyn Sheffield, a consultant to the National Park Service, sifts through numerous studies in her effort to find ways parks can reach out to the many visitors ... Read More
